I have a friend/client (a jeweler) who needs to purchase a new camera. He has a nice lightbox setup (I think something specifically intended for jewelry use - he mentioned "full spectrum lights", although I don't know a brand name or model for it.

His current pictures (shot with a cheap Fuji point and shoot) come out with a severe blue cast. Obviously, he needs something where he can set the white balance to compensate for that. Any suggestions for a good point and shoot that allows control of the white balance, and has a good macro mode? I suspect a Canon G series would be a good bet... thoughts on that?

3 Answers
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While the cameras that Alan suggested are good and I particularly like the S95... you can do better for jewelry photography by getting one that lets you get in much closer. Image quality will do in most cases because you should be shooting at a low ISO from a tripod and with white-balance properly set.

Canon has the SX130 and SX30 (as well as its predecessors) can focus to 1cm or 0cm, respectively. Fuji has a few ultra-zooms like the HS10 or S200 EXR which also get in to 1cm. The one thing to be careful is to make sure the lens does not make a shadow over the jewelry by moving your light appropriately.

You really can't go wrong with any point and shoot these days, except for like "My Daughters First Hello Kitty Camera." Almost any regular point and shoot will have a basic "macro mode" (also known as close focus mode), and white balance controls.

The Canon S95 is a full featured compact point and shoot, with great photo quality and a good set of features (including white balance overrides and macro).

Canon's G11 is a big step up, in price, and in size, but obviously has more features, more control etc.

You can't go wrong with either; which to choose depends on any secondary features your friend might want (size, control).

Personally since both camera's are expensive enough, I would go with the smaller (but that might be because I have a large dslr).